


To My Shining, Seven years Later

by QueenPotatos



Category: Free!
Genre: Day 1 : pré relationship, Hiyori is a little shit even when he doesn't want to and I adore him, M/M, rinharuweek, the my shining come back no one asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:00:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21961741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenPotatos/pseuds/QueenPotatos
Summary: Some truths shine differently under certain lights.RinHaruWeek 2019 - Day 1, Confession, pré relationship, canon verse.
Relationships: Matsuoka Rin/Nanase Haruka
Comments: 9
Kudos: 27
Collections: Rin & Haru Week





	To My Shining, Seven years Later

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas everyone !  
> Here is my first entry for rinharu week.  
> I will dedicate all my works to my waifus Eos and Knaps because I love them and their support made this possible. I love you <3

* * *

Haru wakes up in the middle of the night and thinks, perhaps for the fifth time this week, that he has no idea of how his life turned out like this. If his present self were to go back into the past to warn a barely fifteen year old Haru, chances were high he would have never believed it. Swimming something else than free, swimming in Olympic pools from around the world, swimming for Japan…

Swimming with Rin.

Haru takes a deep breath without meaning to when he thinks the name of the person sharing the room with him. Rin is back from Australia for their training camp; he won’t stay long, just a couple of more weeks until it’s over so when he requested they got paired together, Haru had felt proud, and happy more than anything. There was and still is something else though that surprises him a bit, a feeling uncanny and unpleasant lurking in the corner of his mind. It’s like seeing a mosquito bite before it starts to itch. First he regrets seeing it at all, because now it’s the only thing he can think of, especially not to touch that bit of skin and then, because it starts to itch earlier just because he has actually seen it. Human brain in all its splendour…

And yet the more Haru thinks about it – he scratches, always when it comes to Rin – the less it makes any sense. His cohabitation with Rin is going on with any single hitch. They agreed to a routine on the first days and never diverted from it; they go running in the morning, then Rin takes a short shower and Haru a long bath, they turn off the light rather early compared to the rest of the team but it works, it works really well – he wouldn’t risk thinking it’s a bit too well indeed – and there is nothing Haru isn’t delighted about.

That’s it, that’s where his conclusion leads him : he is simply happy, to be in this bed, in this place, and next to Rin’s.

He’s annoyed the bite still itches. When he dreams for the rest of the night, it’s only to be bitten by a hundred of mosquitos and Makoto running after him in a suit, shouting that he should protect himself.

Haru is grumpy when they run. For some reason Rin finds it funny. “What’s bitten you?”

“Mosquitos! Hundreds of them!” Haru vents, and he tells him about his dream and ends up having a stitch in his side for talking so much. Rin is beaming when they halt; he can’t stop smiling when he’s not laughing, making fun of him for this beginners’ mistake. Haru can’t find any strength in him to even be simply annoyed by his attitude. He catches himself thinking that it would be wonderful if Rin could keep smiling like that for the rest of his life.

The thought doesn’t leave him alone.

The bite changes form.

One night Rin is sitting on his bed his back against the wall and he’s looking at something on his phone, his earplugs on – he’s concentrate, and by that Haru means he is _not_ smiling. He calls him out.

Rin puts down his earplugs and smiles, “Yes Haru?”

Haru sees half of his pointy teeth and how the smile reaches his eyes, how bright they are when he looks at him and suddenly this unpleasant feeling he’s been avoiding for weeks isn’t as unknown as he would like it to be. Haru has seen enough teen movies to recognise the ugly symptoms : swelling chest, burning cheeks, fastened heartbeat, light head, lips curling on their own to form a smile when nothing ask of it, a feeling of joy and blissfulness he has rarely felt before.

The sentence is irrevocable : he’s got a crush, a really big one.

“Nothing.”

What pisses him the most at this very moment is how unsurprised he is by the situation. Has he been a bit cleverer he could have easily foreseen this forecast catastrophe and declined Rin’s previous offer to share a room just the two of them, which wouldn’t lead to this epiphany and wouldn’t threatened what they already have built over the years, in which Haru finds his present happiness.

He already has enough. He has Rin, swimming, and his friends; he can’t ask for more.

“You sure? You’ve got a funny look on your face.”

Rin puts his phone back on the bed and is about to get up to join him – red code red code – and Haru can’t deal with how thoughtful he is, like, seriously, who on earth allowed someone like Rin to exist?

“I was just wondering what you were reading that makes you look so serious.”

“Oh,” Rin sits back, somehow there’s a flash of disappointment on his face, “It’s about the fires in Australia.”

They talk about the subject for a couple of minutes before Rin turns the lights out, which allows Haru to finally consider the one Rin has lit inside his heart. He rolls on his side.

This really sucks big time.

The blaze seems to be under control. Haru, realizing these feelings were underlining for perhaps half of his life, decides he has time to address them, decorticate them, restructure them into something a little less messy than ‘You make me feel hot inside’ and more into something Rin will actually like, or even deserve – if he considers that he is worth of Rin’s love and affection, which is not a certainty yet. Haru feels rather at peace with his not so new finding in ways he had never imagined; his feelings flow like water on his skin when they swim and hit home, as if it has been the answer to all his unasked questions that had made every interaction with Rin lacking of a certain something, an obviousness he could never really see clearly until today.

They were walking together on a thick lay of glass, each of their steps leading to their future fragilizes the floor, causing cracks to appear and reunite along their way. Haru put a lot of unresolved conflicts under this shape of glass; Rin’s first departure, the incident in middle school, the first year he came back from Australia, every time they had worked past their differences with a race, a couple of tear and hugs but not with words – all these words are kept down there, and Haru doesn’t want to see them, to hear them, to speak them.

Maybe later. Maybe when things are less complicated and there’s less pressure on their shoulders. Maybe when they’ll be older and together, maybe he’ll look down, they will do this together.

But today is not that day. Today, Ikuya brought his friend with him because he barely knows Rin and Hiyori was always a bit too curious of Ikuya’s relative for his own good. So there he is, in their room, looking around. Haru knows now he’s rather inoffensive behind his scathing remarks; as long he leaves Ikuya alone, things should be fine.

It’s all chitchat and small talks about their training and the next swimming session, something that actually interests Haru and that’s how he lets it happen. Hiyori is looking at their stuff out of pure curiosity and he takes out a book from underneath his bed. The action, as creepy as it is, leaves Haru mortified for a dozen others reasons.

“I’ve seen this before.” Ikuya frowns and sits on the bed next to his best friend – they’re tight to the hips these days. “It was in your room when we spent the night during middle school.”

“Why would you take something that old with you?” Hiyori asks.

Rin, standing next to him, seems uneasy – just like he’s himself – and he suspects it’s for the exact same reason. They both recognize the object of Hiyori’s interest.

“This looks like the page you’ve opened the most.”

This is the moment Haru wonders why on earth he did leave a bookmark here. Or why he did take that book he hadn’t opened in years. He wonders and then suddenly it’s rather obvious.

It’s the itching. It’s the words he doesn’t want to say but needs to hear.

“My shining. Oh, starts good.” Hiyori is reading, Rin and Haru go rigid. “Iwatobi Elementary school is irreplaceable to me. The brilliance of everything in turn causes me to shine. The sparkling windows, the fluttering butterflies weaving their way through the school garden. All of it dazzles and makes me shining.”

The way he reads doesn’t do any harm, far from it – there’s always some kind of candour in Hiyori’s voice, a symptom of a good heart deep inside – but it’s something different that makes Haru hold his breath, as if something is about to fall on his head and crush him with the weight of his own subtly muted feelings, ones he can no longer ignore.

Rin knows too what is about to come, because after all he’s the writer but the other two don’t know that fact.

“That is where I also find my other shining.” A pause, Hiyori looks at him then, “I can’t believe it you had a crush in elementary school. Why did no one talk about this? If one day we can fly to the end of the world together-”

“Hiyori.” Ikuya puts a hand on his shoulder, a vain attempt to stop him.

“-then the light that spreads infinitely will-“

“That’s enough.”

Ikuya takes the book from his hands, his cheeks rosy with second hand embarrassment; because it was nothing next to the shade of crimson – almost burnt – spread across Haru and Rin’s face, the difference between his cheeks and hair being difficult to make at the moment.

“Haru I never knew you were that romantic. You hide your game rather well, I wonder who was the lucky one.” Hiyori turns to Ikuya. “Have you got any idea?”

“You know this is not the kind of thing to discuss openly. Look at Haru, you’re embarrassing him.”

“But it’s from elementary school right? It was so long ago, almost ten years what harm does it make?”

They’re all glad Natsuya chooses that moment to invite them for a swimming contest, where awkwardly neither Rin or Haru are in a hurry to go. They remain in their room, facing each other but both looking at their feet. Truth, it’s not the first time they read this together – Haru remembers that time well – but now the words have more meaning than they used to. Haru risks a glance and regrets immediately when he sees just how red Rin is, even if he’s certainly not too far behind. Even for this kind of thing, they tend to tie.

“We should-“

“Yeah definitely.”

“They won’t wait for us.”

And indeed they didn’t.

The night is short thanks to a swirl of emotions and an urgency that runs under his skin but still, Haru dreams. He’s walking behind Rin on the glass and suddenly his foot breaches the surface. The glass shatters and Haru falls, he shouts Rin’s name who immediately takes his hand, saving him from the fall – except he doesn’t. Rin takes his hand and jumps with him.

“Isn’t it better if we fall together?” He says.

It lifts the weight off of his chest, it’s all it takes not to be afraid anymore. They all say it’s not the worst though but the landing doesn’t frighten him either, as long as Rin’s there, as long as they’re together, this is the only thing that matters.

They fall in the ocean. The water is salty, the water is endless. Rin is nude and so he is, they are still holding hands. Haru finds out he can breathe under water but after all it’s all in his dreams so why not? Why not feel like the king of the world just because Rin is there and has jumped with him?

He links their forehead, then Rin kisses him softly and the world outside disappears in a sea of bubbles.

When he wakes up Haru has already reached a sort of serenity he didn’t possess the previous day, and somehow he knows it’s going to be okay, that whatever happens or however it does, they will find a way through it. He loves Rin, and Rin has probably loved him – even if just a little – for perhaps just as long if he’s lucky.

It’s not dawn yet. Rin is still asleep, showing his back at Haru which is unusual, certainly a consequence of yesterday. The days they can wake up in the same bed, limbs entwine, will come soon enough.

Haru rolls on his side, his face turned to Rin, and decides that for now, it’s time to go back to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're wondering yes I'm a SnK fan as well.  
> I'm [here on Twitter](https://twitter.com/doctor_queenie) and you can bug me on the discord server as well !


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